To ask why older women constantly ask if I have children, as opposed to if I have a partner?

OP, to quote with a slight edit your latest post

"It’d be so refreshing if people could just accept a [QUESTION] without trying to dissect or challenge it."

Same back to you, 15-love, and all that.

Guess what?
They're making conversation.
Tbf if you were a man they would probably ask what you do for work followed by do you have dc.

Only at job interviews or on dates has anyone said - Tell me about yourself.

They ask everyone.

I used to just shake it off. Some older women are still very old fashioned

Ask them.

It’s a more neutral question to ask about children than partners IMO. These women aren’t judging you and I doubt they care whether you have children or not. They’re just making polite conversation.

Why does this bother you? Is it because they ‘got the order wrong’ and should have asked about a partner first? I don’t get it. Lots of women have children but no partner - for any number of reasons. These women are trying to find topics of conversation. Asking about children is an easy way to start a conversation. It allows the other woman to answer briefly or expand, as she wishes.

Oh and this. I did not meet DH until i was in my 30s and had my first Ds late into my 30s. A friend of my mother's asked me a few years before that what i was doing with myself these days and when I said I'd recently been employed in a very high powered international job she laughed in my face and said' 'Oh you poor fool- you'll never get a husband with that attitude!'. It was said with such contempt like I was less than shit on her shoe.

It seems to be a passage of life!

I used to get all those comment when I was in my early 30s too.

Now I'm 40, they don't say it to me anymore.

I guess for these “older women”, their kids are, and always will be - the most important people in their lives….and they’re looking to relate to others about that. Ok, so perhaps it’s clumsy, but some people are.

I agree with some pps that have said it's most probably women making conversation. Lots of women have children and families and talking about families is something that people do when they get together and don't know each other that well. You're not usually going to get into a deep and meaningful conversation about politics, war or the natural world when you meet someone briefly. It's kind of common ground, I guess, as we all have a family (of some description) even if it's close friends etc. Better than talking about the weather I guess!
I think we can always find something to be offended about when offense was never intended, if we try hard enough!

How much older ?

I started a new job earlier this month and do you have kids is a bonding question. So I told one woman that my dd is at uni and we discussed what she was studying and what her son at uni was studying too. There’s a good chance that someone your age has kids so it’s a common question to ask like “Did you travel far today ?” (Not a dig at people who aren’t local)

The follow up comments like you have plenty of time is rude though. Not everyone wants or can have kids and that assumes that you want kids.

I agree with pp that asking about kids is more interesting than asking about a partner. Half of marriages end in divorce and you don’t want to kill the conversation when you ask someone whose marriage ended in sad circumstances.

It's usually because 'partners' come and go but children are forever. And at the end of the day by the time you get to your age OP most partners have proven only to be a bit disappointing.

Sounds like they’re just trying to make conversation.

@ThisLoudBeaker " But I get what you’re saying, and it’s definitely frustrating no matter who’s doing it."

Not as bloody frustrating that the constant "older women are like this" narrative that abounds.

To be fair in this instance I wouldn’t bite my tongue if I was you.

I don't mind being asked if I have kids. I do mind if my answer of no leads to all the 'plenty of time yet' or 'you'll change your mind' kind of replies. Women actively and enthusiastically choosing not to have kids seems to make some people, usually mums in my experience, quite uncomfortable.

I know exactly what you mean.
One friend of a friend particularly, every time I see her it's the same "no kids yet??".
I'm very sorely tempted to reply "no, seeing you so haggard and miserable put me off". Instead I bite my tongue.

Its because all older women are bitter, jealous, insecure and unhappy with our lives. Our one remaining pleasure being to upset younger women. If we're not MiL with a DiL on tap to annoy, we make do with asking younger women questions designed to annoy them, but cunningly disguised as making conversation. You have clearly seen through our ruse OP, so will be ahead of the game when on your 40th birthday you will required to start annoying younger women yourself.

Could you give us a list of appropriate questions to ask to get to know someone op?
I’m an older woman, don’t want to inadvertently upset someone by actually being interested in them.

TBH if I'm interested in you then I'm far more interested in whether you have dc than whether you have a partner. Partners may come and go, but dc are part of you.

But if you said you didn't then I would just accept it (and not bend your ear with stories about mine). None of my business why, and I certainly would not patronise you with 'your time will come' - what a🤮 thing to say!

Are all these questioning older women in the room with you right now, OP?

Just making conversation I imagine sometimes that's all it is doesn't have to a reason behind it.

I have friends with partners and no children. I have friends with children and no partner. If my DCs came up naturally in the conversation I might ask if someone had kids because there
might then be a shared experience. I don’t think I would ever ask someone if they had a partner as I can’t really think of anything that would be a natural extension to a conversation on that context - unless I was having a moan about something but even then I probably wouldn’t. Maybe because am older and friends have been through some pretty brutal splits.